June 2 2007

Summer has arrived early! It got to the low 90’s this week with no rain in sight…Rose Festival and the parade usually brings rain but so far, not a drop. The photos are from late April early May when most of it was just beginning to bloom…I’ll add a June 2 photo soon just to see the difference….

The birdhouse hanging from the arbor is the home of 2 BlackCapped Chickadees and their newborns! Oh my gosh, it is so fun watching them fly in with food and out again in search of it! I love my yard! I saw a Monarch butterfly today, cut 5 gorgeous Billy Graham roses for the dining room...the hummingbirds are stopping by the rose arbor, the foxglove and fire pokers as well as the feeders we have out...it's great, but just too early for the heat wave that we have going on....

Work is a four letter word...although I am more comfortable in my position it is still exceedingly stressful. I have discovered that I am not that enamored with doing this type of work...I did not go to school for 4 years to be doing this job..yet I have not a clue as to what it is I do want to do...

I still dream of writing, yet I don't take the time to do that...I dream of retiring....yes, that would be the best and I also dream of going back to school and getting more educattion! Not enough money or time -

I just celebrated 29 years clean and sober ....now that is something to be proud of! And I am. I have a great life. I have some great friends, I have a wonderful sponsor in Doris, some nutty women that I sponsor and a husband who loves me and whom I love. I needlepoint, read and go to the movies....life is great!I just wish I had more time to do those things...but for the time being I must work...it could be worst - I could be unemployed, drunk and loaded...so NOT!

World Hunger - World Peace

This photo is from "thehungersite.com".... I visit this sight each day and click on the bar to add my cup of food to the daily total, (Behavioral reward system of training definitely in place here) then I head to the breast cancer tab and click there for a 'free mammogram' for some low-income woman, then to the literacy tab, click and I've sent a book to a child.... I haven't yet succumbed to the rainforest and animal rescue tabs....but I started with just the hunger tab and look where I am today!!! I click on hunger because I can not imagine what it must be like to be hungry, truly-unbelievably-rack-o-bones-dying from lack of food in a world of plenty. I now click on breast cancer because my family has experienced that and it is treatable if one can be screened and in this man's world --- where males are, by simply being males - entitled to many health insurance covered screenings/tests/exams that women are still unable to obtain unless they have extremely good insurance --- and if they suffer from breast cancer, lose a breast or die from it BECAUSE they couldn't afford the screening, then SHAME on US (as in the United States of America)....so I click the bar. I've just recently started clicking on the literarcy tab because I believe education is the key to self-empowerment....for EVERYONE....not just white european males, but white/black/brown/red, males/females, rich/poor or in-between. I can not imagine my life without books...knowledge is power, but books can take you anywhere you want to go, regardless of where you are when you read them. When I was a child, books were my escape from a childhood filled with horrors, in the middle of the night - I was Nancy Drew and Clara Barton (civil war nurse). As I got older I saw the horrors of racial tension and divide in our nation through the eyes of Southern blacks (oh, to rember the title of that book- I'll remember)

Sorry, I digress. The point of the photo at the time is the saying - "It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace" - Aristolte....a brilliant man....organize peace - if that were the simple thing to do in today's world...currently the government is lead by a man who can not string a coherent sentence together on his own....the man is an imbecile...today the news reported more soldiers killed in Iraq. When will it end?

We have absolutely no business fighting a war in Iraq or any place else. Why are there not more people speaking out about the war and the need to bring these boys home....? Why is the news playing it down?

I say, lets organize peace here at home and keep our sticky fingers out of the country pie somewhere else....do we not already have enough problems to resolve right here at home?

Peace......

My kids - the cats.....

Februaray 27, 2007

This is Lola Morgan...one of a pair. Born on Flag Day - June 14, 1998 in Seal Beach California. While they look like Russian Blues, their mother was Siamese, their inherited some of the undesirable traits....aloofness and self obsession....perfect cats for me, some would say....

She has always been the "don't touch me cat" - if she daned to situate herself near you or god-forbid seat on your lap. one DID NOT TOUCH her! Even when the urge was more than I thought I could bear and I knew without a doubt that she would flee as if struck by lightning, I would reach out and pet her....only to be rebuffed. She also resisted with claws flying, clothes be damned, the idea of actually picking up and holding her.....age has mellowed her - somewhat - she will actually avail herself of my lap as I sit and needlepoint or read, she suffers through the petting and Loves to have her ears roughly scratched....she has even allowed me, if I am nimble enough to catch her, to hold her in my arms where she will eventually purr. I am not allowed to walk with her, I must stand still and let her be, but I have tamed her or more likely she has tamed me.

Cats are an interesting species to watch. Certainly my cats Lola and Lucy exhibit behavior that is different than Spencer Tracy and his sister Katharine Hepburn, although Lucy and Kate were identical in that they were both the LAP cats in my life. If I am sitting or lying down, Lucy is ON me like it is her only method of breathing....she will follow me from room to room - because she knows that at some point I will sit down. She has even followed me to the toilet and attempted to mount me....honestly, sometimes it is just annoying. She sleeps on me, and if I turn on my side she climbs right on up to the available hip and attempts to make a bed. ..... you would think she'd get the hint..."I don't want you on me, hence I turned over!" - she persists....

Lola and Lucy will chase each other through the house, one eventually ends up on the floor on their back, claws extended in a defensive move, teeth bared and equal amounts of hissing from both sides...occassionally I will find them curled up together, but it is rare.

Lola likes to sit on my desk as I work, tail gracefully wrapped around her legs. She watches me, and when she determines that I have been given ample time to pay attention to her and haven't she gives me the head butt....yep, a head butt. She'll continue this playful poking until I have stopped doing whatever it is that she wants to interrupt - this is my signal to scratch her ears, and I'm not done until she leaves. If I should make the mistake of stopping before my time is up, she resumes the head-butt....she's persistent, I'll give her that. She also likes to have her water from the bathroom sink. Not the tub, her water dish or the toilet...ever the finnicky cat, she will sit on the corner of the counter, meow continuously until someone shows up to run the tap...and don't put too much into the sink...it has to be just the right amount so that she can climb into it and lap up water without gettin gher dainty paws wet....I like her, she's independent , clean, self-sufficient and a loner. Like her mom...

Lucy Madeleine, born on the same day as her sister, she is the pudgy one who is needy, self absorbed and demanding. She likes button, string and plastic bags, shiny objects - things to chew on or put. She's a love, but at 10 pounds it is a lot of love in one's lap. But at least she'll trade a nail clipping with sitting in my lap....she's also my climber. We have to keep the linen closet doors closed with a strip of wood so she won't paw them open and jump up to the closest shelf - she wants to sleep on the towels, up high and in the dark...strange cat, very strange. Like her mom...

I have to go, the head-butting has started....ok, ok stop poking me. For all my grumbling, I can't imagine home-life without my cats.....

Lucy- sunny herself, of course.